Afridi delighted with series win

Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi feels his side's series victory against New Zealand came at the right time given the upcoming World Cup.

After a thrilling two-wicket win in the fourth ODI at Napier, the visitors put on a solid batting display led by opener Ahmed Shehzad whose blistering 115 off 109 balls - his maiden ODI century, took them to a competitive total of 268.

Afridi then led by example with the ball and picked up two wickets alongside Wahab Riaz and Umar Gul - who snapped up three and two respectively - to trigger New Zealand's collapse and ensure an easy victory.

"This is what we expected of the boys," Afridi said. "After a long time, Pakistan have won a series and this came at the right time for us, right before a World Cup.

"Ahmed Shehzad, what a talent he is. But yes, given the way that we were playing, I expected us to reach 300, 300-plus but in the middle, the wicket became a bit slow, and they [New Zealand] bowled very well towards the end."

New Zealand's stand-in captain Ross Taylor too praised his bowlers for their tight bowling in the first innings, but rued that the batting let them down again.

"I think we were very happy to restrict them to 268, the way that Kyle [Mills] and Jacob [Oram] brought us back into the game. They were looking to get a score well over 300 and to restrict them to 268 was a very good job."

Taylor added: "We pretty much wanted to be chasing 85, 90 in the last 10 overs. We did that but we lost too many wickets and put too much pressure on the lower order.

"The way that Pakistan bowled with their reverse swing in the death overs, it was always going to be hard to get that score and they bowled really well."